Things To Do In Dallas: Feb. 18

SideDish’s Carol says this image is heavily Photoshopped and/or old, and that he’s not quite this cute. So judgmental.

Happy President’s Day, all. Downtown is positively ghostly.

Tonight I invite you to rewind your sensibilities to 2007, when Gene Weingarten wrote the story that would earn him his first Pulitzer Prize. It’s called “Pearls Before Breakfast,” and it is about the time he asked Joshua Bell, a world-famous violinist with a $3.5 million Stradivarius, to play anonymously in the L’Enfant Plaza metro stop in Washington, D.C. to see if anyone would stop and listen during rush hour. It’s good, and you should read it. Especially since Bell made in 43 minutes about the equivalent of what you’ll pay for the second cheapest seat at his performance tonight at Bass Hall. You can still get orchestra seats, too, in case you want a better view of him and his floppy mop. Not too far away, you can counterbalance your classical culture with high-end Texas grub at Lonesome Dove.

Also this evening, we have a staged reading of Henry VI, Part I, the first Shakespeare Dallas-AT&T Performing Arts Center love child in the Bard’s War of the Roses play cycle. They’re got them lined up like bowling pins for the next four months, and it’s pretty exciting as long as you can keep all the squabbling royals straight for that long. King Henry is not yet embroiled in all -out war, but it is certainly looming as he deals with the bitter fact that England has lost its grip on the French territories and his noblemen are too busy with their personal vendettas to do something so trivial as run a country. This will all go down in the Winspear Opera House’s Hamon Hall. And since it’s Monday, be careful with your Arts District restaurants. It’s so nice outside that I’d do an early dinner at Wild Salsa downtown and just walk back.